Yes, the war on drugs in the US has been a failure however, drug traffickers do not rule the Bronx, south Chicago or south Los Angeles as they do in Rio's slums. In Brazil the presence of the state does not prevent drug gangs from ordering closure of shops or selling drugs as always with police taking a cut, passing it up and looking the other way. In the US corrupt cops and corrupt politicians go to jail.

I may be wrong but Brazil has more baptised catholics than any other country, which does not reflect its extremely low levels (by American standards) of practice, church attendance, religius weddings and so on. Furthermore most Brazilians (including myself as most of my friends and family may tick just one box on surveys but have a synchretic catholic-afro-spiritist-buddhist faiths that are both eclectic and difficult to quantify). Most potestants belong to local Brazilian pentecostal churches (sometimes referred to as "Evangelical" - erroneously I think) with less than 30 years since having been "revealed". American evangelicals (unlike their spectacular success growth stories in Central America and even places like Peru, Ecuador or Paraguay)are actually a tiny proportion of Protestant Brazilians.
The article is spot on on the Catholic church response - through "charismatic"(borrowing more from local pentecostals than from US based ones)means. They have not succeeded in maintaining Catholic numbers but they have had some positive(?) results in converting a few agnostics, and turning a few of the previously faithful native protestants to a more fundamentalist flavor of Catholicism..much like the one(s) they left behind. So: outlook for Christians in Brazil? excellent in aggregate figures, terrible in terms of keeping any sort of coherent set of beliefs. I guess if you can't persuade people by the relevance and substance of the *Word* you can always promise them earthly riches and heavenly rewards.

I was a catholic, but I became an atheist for a simple reason: I READ.

With all due respect, it is understandable that people follow a certain religion and believe in a certain God while they don't have enough maturity to think for themselves. But there's a limit to everything. A person with a minimum ability to reason would never blindly believe such an opportunist concept as a "personal god", let alone listen to radical neighing "evangelicos"(who, by the way, have completely disfigured protestantism).

Religion does have its socially positive aspects (which have absolutely nothing to do with divinity), however, it's mostly used as a guide to an army of blind radicals. "Protestantismo à brasileira" is the perfect example of how high human stupidity levels can go.

I honestly believe that evangélicos are a far more dangerous threat to the well being of Brazil than all the corrupt politicians put together.

Although there are still drug traffick in some favelas the same is true for New York city and every big City in US and Europe, we could say that the US state is impotent to conrol de problem? The point is the presence of State and govenments services in this areas. I would be careful to visit Bronx and some suburbs in Paris too.

Although many Brazilians profess to be catholics only a tiny minority actually follows its rules. The pacification of "favelas" is a lie because drug traffickers continue to exert control. Recently, they kicked out Afro -Reggae, a NGO from "Complexo do Alemao", one of the largest slums in Rio. The state is impotent to effectively control the problem because corruption flows to the very top. It is all about keeping appearances in an awkward truce. For gringos visiting Rio: be careful lodging in hotels near favelas because criminals may raid them and even take hostages like what happened at Intercontinental hotel in Sao Conrado.